CNN Says That President Obama Eats His Children With His Popcorn

From CNN's Political Ticker last week, discussing President Obama's attendance at the George Washington-Oregon State basketball game (Obama's brother-in-law is the Oregon State coach):

Robinson, who coaches the Oregon State Beavers, was cheered on by the President, who snacked on popcorn, the First Lady, Sasha, Malia and the girls’ grandmother Marian Robinson.

What would you do to correct this?

Listen, we all know what the author is saying, and no one believes that Obama ate Sasha and Malia.  But when we see a sentence like that, we start thinking less about the message and more about its impression upon us (in this case, we laugh) and how it looks.

Full text here (thanks to the ADS-L listserv for this gem)

Update: after about three weeks, the sentence has been corrected on CNN's blog:

Robinson, who coaches the Oregon State Beavers, was cheered on by the President, who snacked on popcorn, joined by the first lady, Sasha, Malia and the girls’ grandmother Marian Robinson.

Comments

[Ann Nowak]

The Obama article was really funny. I would have written the snacking business as a parenthetical statement. Or, I might have set it off with dashes. Thanks for a good laugh!